Introduction to

Cellular Mobile Communications

Dr. Essam Sourour

1
 Section Overview
• Historical Development
• Cellular System Components
• Cellular Concept & Frequency Reuse
• Co-Channel Interference
• Cell Sectoring & Beam Tilting
• Channel Assignment Techniques
• Cell Splitting
• Handoff and Handoff Types
• Power Control, open loop and closed loop
• System Channels & Typical Call

2
 Historical Development
• Started with isolated wireless service areas
– Stand alone areas
– No connection to public telephones
• Added communication among service
areas belonging to same system
• Cellular Concepts developed
– Interconnection
– Connection to Public Telephony
– Handoff for uninterrupted service

3
 Historical Development …
Switch

Isolated Mobile Systems

Basic Cellular System

PSTN/ISDN
PSTN/ISDN Switch

Historical Background
4
 Historical Development
• First generation cellular mobile
communications: (1980 )
– Technology: FDMA and Analog Technology.
– Systems: AMPS(USA), NMT-900(Sweden),
HCMTS(Japan)
– Shortages: Low capacity, poor Security, Low
quality, voice only (no data)
– Advantages: enough for the time
 Historical Development …
• Second generation, 2G : (1992)
– Technology: TDMA, TDMA hybrid FDMA
– Systems: DAMPS(USA, IS-54), GSM
– Advantages: Higher Capacity, good Security, good
speech quality

– Technology: CDMA (Qualcomm)

– Systems: CDMA(IS-95)
– Advantages: Good Security, Higher & Soft Capacity,
Speech Activity, Multipath Diversity Rx., good speech
quality
– Shortages: Mainly Voice Service & low data rate
Services
6
 Historical Development …
• 2.5 Generation, 2.5 G: (1996-2000)
– GPRS in Europe: Higher data rate (up ~ 150
kbps), Packet Switched Data, compatible
with GSM
– IS-95 B in US: Higher Data rate (up to ~114
kbps), Packet or Switched Data, compatible
with IS-95

7
 Historical Development …
• The third generation 3G: (2001-2005)
– Support Multimedia Service, especially Internet
Service, 144kb/s(Outdoor and higher velocity ),
384kb/s(from Outdoor to indoor, lower velocity),
2Mb/s(indoor)
– Better Speech Quality and other services
– New Technologies like Tx Diversity, Turbo coding,
Multiuser Detection and Interference Cancellation,
Beam forming and Smart Antennas

8
 System Components
• Mobile Stations
– Transceiver
– Antenna
– Control circuitry
– Moves at pedestrian or vehicle speeds
• Base Transceiver Station (BTS)
– Several transmitters and receivers
– Tower that supports several transmitting and receiving antennas
• Base Station Controller (BSC)
– Control one or more BTS
– Bridge between all mobile users of the BTSs and a Mobile switching center
• Mobile Switching Center (MSC)
– Connects MSs to the PSTN (public-switched telephone network)
– Coordinates activities of all BSCs
– Controls all billing and system maintenance functions
– Several MSCs in large cities

9
System Components …
1 2 3 1 2 3
4 5 6 4 5 6
7 8 9 7 8 9
* 8 # * 8 #

Public Switched
Telephone Network

MSC

BSC BSC

MS

BTS
BTS
BTS BTS
MS
MS
MS MS

1
 Cellular Concept
• Idea: replace high power transmitter with
several lower power transmitters to
create small “cells”
• Multiple cells cover a geographic area
• Each cell assigned a set of frequencies
• Neighboring cells assigned different
group of frequencies to reduce adjacent-
cell interference

1
 Cellular Concept…
 Enables spatial frequency reuse
 Increase capacity by increasing number of
transmitters and decreasing transmit power
 Enables fixed bandwidth to serve arbitrarily
large number of subscribers
 Users within a cell communicate with the cell
BS
 As users move between cells, calls go
through “hand-off” when switching to new cell
BS
1
 Cellular Concept…
• Large-radius cells for large coverage area
with small number of users
• Evolve into small-radius cells when number
of users increase using cell-splitting
• Main ideas of cellular systems
– Small coverage areas (cells)
– Frequency reuse
– Handoff
– Cell splitting to increase capacity

1
 Why are Cells Required?
• Original mobile voice networks used
transmitter with large power to cover very
large area
• Capacity severely limited by available
bandwidth
• Spectrum limited, so could not increase
capacity by adding new channels
• Cellular concept was born
– Ushered in modern communication systems
1
 Frequency Reuse
• Design cells to be non-overlapping and cover
entire region
• Cells depicted as hexagons
– Conceptual design allowing easy analysis of system
– Close to circular shape achieved by omnidirectional
antennas
• “Footprint”: actual radio coverage of a cell
– Determined from field measurements or propagation
prediction models
– Amorphous in nature
– Use hexagon to approximate shape

1
 Frequency Reuse…
• Due to Co-channel Interference (CCI),
cannot use same frequency in adjacent cell
• Cells that use same frequencies must be
separated by distances large enough to keep
interference levels low
• Frequencies assigned to different cells using
frequency reuse plan
• Adjacent cells assigned different
frequencies to avoid interference or
crosstalk

1
 Frequency Reuse…
• Objective is to reuse frequency in nearby
cells
• 10 to 50 frequencies assigned to each cell
• Transmission power controlled to limit power at
that frequency escaping to adjacent cells
• The issue is to determine how many cells must
intervene between two cells using the same
frequency

1
 Frequency Reuse…
• Cells with same letter use the same set of
frequency channels
• Using hexagonal cells, BS located at center of
cell
• MS at edge of cell receives weak signal from
BS, i.e., low Carrier to Interference ratio (C/I)
B
G C
A
F D
B E
G C B
A G C
F D A
E F D
E 1
 Frequency Reuse…
• Suppose system has S total channels & k
channels per cell (k < S)
• Channels divided among N cells into disjoint
groups, S = kN, N cells which use all S channels
called “cluster” (N = cluster size, typically 4, 7, 12)
• Clusters replicated in system
• Typically cluster size N = i2 + ij + j2
– N=7  i=2, j=1
– N=3  i=1, j=1
 Move i cells in any direction
 Turn 60o CCW
 Move j cells in this direction

1
Frequency Reuse…
B
G C B
N=7 A G C
F D A
i=2, j=1 E F D
E

A A
N=3 B B
C C C
i=1, j=1 A A
B B B
C C

2
 Frequency Reuse Pattern
2 2
1 1 3
3 4

N=3
3 N=4
6 1
4 1
7 2 1
5 1 N=1
1
N=7
2
 Cell Geometry

R
D R

R
D
 q  3N
R

2
 Co-Channel Interference
• Cells using the same frequency cause
interference to each other
• Called co-channel interference (CCI)
• CCI increases as the cluster size N decreases
• Important factor for signal quality is the
Carrier to Interference Ratio C/I
• Most interference comes from the first tier of
co-channel cells

2
Co-Channel Interference…
1 1
R
Second tier
1 Interfering Cell
First tier
D 1
1
1 1 1
1 1

1 1

2
 Co-Channel Interference…
C C
C/I is calculated as:  KI KI = # of interfering cells
I
 Ik
k 1
The maximum number of K in the first tier is 6 and knowing that
 
CR  R Wanted signal

I  D   D  Interfering signal


The above equation becomes: C R
 KI
I
 kD 

k 1

2
Rearranging:

C 1 1
 
 KI
I KI
 Dk 
 q 

  R 
k 1   k 1
k

and
Dk
qk 
R
The qk is the co-channel interference reduction factor with kth
co-channel interfering cell.

2
 Co-Channel Interference…
• As N decreases the number of frequency
channels per cell increases but C/I
decreases
• C/I is improved by different methods
– Sectored antennas: reduces KI
– Beam tilting: Reduces power to co-channel
cells
– Channel assignment: minimizes activation of
co-channel frequencies, which reduces KI

2
 CCI Reduction: Cell Sectoring
• Shown 120 sectored
antennas
• Channel per cell are 3
divided among 3 sectors 4

• CCI decreased. Sector 0 2

0
gets interference from 5
sectors 4, 5 and 6 only
• 60 degrees sectored also 6
1

possible

2
 CCI Reduction: Beam Tilting

By tilting down the antenna beam, the power

outside the cell, causing CCI reduces

2
 Channel Assignment
• Fixed Channel Assignment
– Cell allocated predetermined set of channels
– Any call within the cell must use one of the
unused channels assigned to cell
– If all channels used, call is blocked
• Channel Borrowing
– If all channels are used in a cell has, it can,
temporarily, borrow from neighboring cells
– MSC supervises borrowing
– Should not cause high CCI to other cell
3
 Channel Assignment …
Dynamic Channel Assignment
• Channels not permanently assigned to cells
• BSC requests channel from MSC when call made
• MSC allocates channel to call based on algorithm that takes
into account
– Probability of future blocking within cell
– Frequency of use of candidate channel
– Reuse distance of channel
• MSC assigns channel that will not interfere with existing calls
• Reduces probability of blocking &Increases channel utilization

3
 Cell splitting
• If higher capacity is needed in a spot, we need to go,
locally, to smaller cluster size N
• Each cell can be split into multiple “microcells” with own
BS
• Rescaling system to smaller cell size
• Transmit power of BS reduced to obtain smaller coverage
area than original BS
• Enables more spatial reuse → greater system capacity
• Cell splitting preserves original frequency reuse plan
• Cell splitting causes increased handoff
• Can use “umbrella” cells where fast-moving mobiles
covered by original cell and slower mobiles covered by
microcells
3
 Cell Splitting Example

D D
E F E F
C B E C B E
G C G E
F
G
C
D A
G D D
A
B
G
F D F C
D
B E F B E F
C B C B
G G

3
Cell Splitting Example...

3
 Handoff
• Mobiles may move out of coverage area of a cell and into
coverage area of a different cell during a call
• MSC must identify new BS to handle call
– MSC must seamlessly transfer control of call to new BS
– MSC must assign call new forward and reverse channels within
the channels of new BS
• Some important performance metrics in handoff:
– Seamless – user should not know handoff occurring
– Minimum unnecessary Handoff due to short time fading
– Low probability of blocking new calls in the new cell
– Handoff to a good SNR channel so that an admitted call is not
dropped

3
 Handoff ...
• Handoff Main Steps
1. Initiation: either mobile or network identifies need for handoff and
begins the process
2. Resource reservation: required resources necessary to support
handoff are allocated
3. Execution: actual handoff takes place and mobile uses new resources
4. Completion: unneeded resources are freed
• Important handoff parameter:
– SNRold to initiate handoff based on minimum acceptable quality
– SNRnew of the target channel (SNRnew > SNRold )
– D = SNRnew - SNRold dB
1. If D too small, unnecessary handoffs occur
2. If D too large, may be insufficient time to complete handoff before SNR old
becomes too weak and signal is lost

3
 Handover decision
receive level receive level
BTSold BTSnew

HO_MARGIN

MS MS

BTSold BTSnew

3
 Handoff ...
• Intersystem handoff
– Handoff may be to a cell in a different system
– Requires compatibility of different MSCs
– Roaming requirements important
• Some systems prioritize handoff over new calls
– Dropped calls more annoying than blocked calls
– Guard channel
 Some voice channels reserved for handoff
 Reduces total carried traffic
 Can use dynamic channel assignment to increase efficiency
– Queuing handoff requests
 Effectiveness depends on the time interval between when handoff
initiated and when the call will be dropped due to low signal strength

3
 Handoff Strategies
• BS typically averages signal strength over moving window of
time to remove rapid fluctuations due to multipath fading
• Handoff will occur using different metrics
– Relative SNR strength
 When SNR at new BS higher than SNR at current BS
– Relative SNR strength with threshold
 When SNR at current BS is below a threshold and SNR at new BS is
higher than at current BS
– Relative SNR strength with hysteresis
 When SNR at new BS is stronger than at current BS by a threshold
– Relative SNR strength with hysteresis and threshold
 SNR at current BS below a threshold and at new BS stronger than at
current BS by a threshold

3
 Mobile Assisted Handoff (MAHO)

• Mobile stations measure received SNR

from surrounding BSs
– Inform current BS of measurements
– Handoff initiated when SNR from other BS
exceeds SNR from current BS by a certain
level or for a certain period of time
• Handoff much quicker using MAHO

4
 Handoff Problems
• High-speed mobiles require frequent handoffs
– Burdens MSC
– Can use “umbrella cells” to minimize handoff
– Pedestrian users covered in small cells
– High-speed users covered in large umbrella cell
– Minimizes handoffs for high-speed users while ensuring capacity for
pedestrian users
• Cell dragging
– If a user has a good LOS path to BS, SNR might be large even when
user has left the cell
– Causes interference and traffic management problems (user in new cell
but managed by old BS)
• Handoff times
– 1st generation analog systems: 10 s
– 2nd generation digital systems: 1-2 s (using MAHO)
4
 Types of Handoff
• Hard handoff (Break before Make)
– Whenever mobile enters new cell, must be assigned new channel for
communication
– E.g., FDMA, TDMA
• Soft handoff (Make before Break)
– Mobile can use channels from two or BS simultaneously
– Mobile adds new channel from the target BS(s)
– Signal from multiple BSs are combined (Macro diversity)
– Mobile concurrently transmitting to and receiving from multiple BSs
– BS with low SNR is dropped
– Used mainly with CDMA (IS-95, CDMA2000 & WCDMA)

4
 Power Control
• If MS is near the BS or in LOS situation, power
to/from the MS can be reduced
– Helps Reduce CCI
– Save battery power
– Alleviate health concerns
• Coarse power control is adequate
– Implemented through Open Loop Power Control
• In CDMA systems all MS use same frequency
• Fine power control is crucial to mitigate the near-
far effect
– Both Open & Closed Loop Power Control

4
 Open-Loop Power Control
• MS measures power on forward link
• If power is high, mobile unit reduces its
uplink power and vice versa
• Power measurements averages the
Rayleigh fading
– Depends on distance and shadowing only
• No feedback from BS
• Not as accurate as closed-loop power
control
4
 Closed-Loop Power Control
• Performed on top of the Open Loop Power
Control
• BS measures the uplink power from MS
• BS transmits power control commands on
the forward link
• MS steps its power up or down
accordingly
• In IS-95, the power control rate is 800 Hz

4
 Cellular System Channels
• Control channels
– Forward and Reverse
– Setting up and maintaining calls
– Exchange commands an/or messages
between MS and BS or MSC (as needed)
• Traffic channels
– Carry voice and/or data traffic

4
 Typical call
• Mobile unit initialization
– Scan and select strongest set up control channel
– Automatically selected BS antenna of cell
• Usually but not always nearest (propagation environment)
– Handshake to identify user and register location
– Scan repeated to allow for movement
• Change of cell
– Mobile unit monitors for pages (see below)
• Mobile originated call
– Check set up channel is free
• Monitor forward channel (from BS) and wait for idle
– Send number on pre-selected channel

4
 Typical call…
• Paging
– MSC attempts to connect to mobile unit
– Paging message sent to BSs depending on called
mobile number
– Paging signal transmitted on set up channel
• Call accepted
– Mobile unit recognizes number on set up channel
– Responds to BS which sends response to MSC
– MSC sets up circuit between calling and called BSs
– MSC selects available traffic channel within cells
and notifies BSs
– BSs notify mobile unit of channel

4
 Typical call…
• Ongoing call
– Voice/data exchanged through respective BSs
and MSC
• Handoff
– Mobile unit moves out of range of cell into
range of another cell
– Traffic channel changes to one assigned to
new BS
• Without interruption of service to user

4
 Summary
• Cellular Concept
• Frequency Reuse
• Co-Channel Interference
• Channel Assignment and Cell Splitting
• Handoff Issues and Handoff Types
• Power Control
• Typical Call Scenario